Class exam and packing bags
Door: Samantha de Bruijn
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Samantha
19 Januari 2011 | Verenigd Koninkrijk, Glasgow
With only a fortnight left in Scotland, my days involved a lot of learning for the class exam we were going to have on the 13th of December. I had bought an advent calender and the count-down had really begun now. I was glad that I didn't need to be outside a lot, because the sidewalks were terrible. Getting groceries was like moving on an ice skating track without ice skates on, but I managed (this time).
When you live in Scotland, which can have low temperatures, especially in winter, you would think that drains wouldn’t be installed above ground where they can easily freeze. This apparently doesn't bother the management from Firhill Court very much, so everyone in Firhill was unable to use the washing machine until temperatures would rise again. What if there is snow until halfway through March?!?
Thursday (9th) was our last tutorial, so we could ask the questions we had with regard to the upcoming class exam. I had send him some of the questions I had and I was glad to hear that he thought they were very good questions. One question was so specific that he had had to ask the teacher of that subject who then wished she had PhD students asking such questions, haha. However, they were still trying to figure out the answer to the question themselves and she was therefore unable to answer me. This didn't really matter, because if that's the case then it would at least not appear in the exam. The tutor was very very kind to us (although it was sometimes a bit hard to find out what kind of answer he wanted to a particular question he asked) and he said we can send him questions via the email even if he isn't our tutor anymore. At the end of the tutorial I gave him some typical Dutch snacks: pepernoten, stroopwafels and drop.
Monday 13th we had our class exam. Maybe because it had the 13 in it, but the day started off bad. Most of the snow of the week before had melted away during the weekend, but there was still some ice left on the pavement and the worst part was that the temperature had been below zero during the night, so that what had been melted snow before had turned into ice. You can imagine some parts felt like an ice skating track and for the first time in Scotland and just a few minutes away from the exam building (of course!) I apparently decided to lie down and was suddenly 1.5 meters lower than Mathilde and Leoni. Fortunately, I didn't break anything, but it was a very ugly fall and I had a lot of pain in the parts that I was actually planning to use for sitting on my chair during the exam.
The exam was more difficult than we thought it would be. We were already been given two exam questions in advance of which we had to choose one to answer at the exam. There were six other questions of which we had to answer two. Those three questions had to be answered in essay style and we had about 45 minutes to write each essay (this includes the time you need to think about what you're going to write down). The duration of the exam was three hours, so the 45 minutes that were left were to answer the 'problem/data analysis'. Unfortunately, half of the question was about drawing the structures of amino acids. Although it is supposed to be common knowledge for the Glasgow students, we actually never had to learn the structures in the Netherlands, only their properties and we had never had to 're-learn' them this semester!
For all the courses we have had during this semester, there was only this class exam as a test. I had expected them to ask questions about the major discussed topics in the courses and had focused my learning on those, but instead they were about some minor parts. I have done all I can and now I can only hope that I passed it. They said we might get the grades halfway through January. For Scottish students this class exam only counts for 5% of their total grade of the year and for honour-students (they have a 4th year of Bachelor's) it doesn't even count at all! However, for us it's the only big grade we will get, because we won't be here during the next class exam and the big end-of-the-year exams. They told us that this class exam probably counts for 70% of our total grade and that the grades of the laboratory reports will count for the other 30%.
The exam finished at 12:30 and before we walked out of the lecture theatre (quite relieved it was all over), we were given back our lab reports from the Proteins laboratory classes. I got an A4! (which would be around a 9 in Dutch grading systems) Quite funny: we told Brian Smith (Advisors of Studies and teacher) about the problems we might have getting back to the Netherlands (the weather forecast had been warning us about more snow coming up) and he said that if we got stuck, we should call him and he would make us a Christmas dinner.
To relax a bit and do some last-minute Christmas shopping, we went into town. It was a bit weird to realize that that was probably the last time that I took the bus from the university to the city centre. Because I had already done my Christmas shopping I bought myself a present: a really, really cute book about making cupcakes. It not only explained about how to make the mix, but it also paid special attention to the decorations on top of the cupcakes. They explain it all very clearly and use ingredients you can buy everywhere. I was really looking forward to try some of them out when I would be back to the Netherlands!
After the shopping, we really needed to head back to Firhill Court, because: we needed to pack our bags! Already? Already! Our plane would leave on Sunday (19th, well, at least that is what we were sincerely hoping!), but Mathilde's parents were so kind to drive to Glasgow and bring most of our luggage back to the Netherlands by car! (just like they had done in the end of August!) I was well aware of the fact that I had bought A LOT in these last four months and was wondering how I could create a cleaver way of packing, so I didn't need to sort things out in the Netherlands and that it would be 'easy' to put them in the car. I had bought some extra very strong plastic carrier bags at the Lidl; one of them was filled with clothes, one with presents that had to go to Middelburg, one was filled with presents that had to go to Limburg and one with most of my books (school and reading books). One sports bag with small stuff and two Eastpak bags with the rest of my books and other stuff. Everything that was left would go in my big suitcase (at that moment I still I though I probably didn't need all the space) or my hand luggage on the plane. I had left my postcards and photos on my wall. They're not that heavy, do not take that long to pack and it made my room less empty/more like home for the last few days that I was there.
Love,
Samantha
-----------------------------------
Photos: http://s1046.photobucket.com/home/MathildeCastelijns/allalbums
Cupcakes: http://www.hellocupcakebook.com/
When you live in Scotland, which can have low temperatures, especially in winter, you would think that drains wouldn’t be installed above ground where they can easily freeze. This apparently doesn't bother the management from Firhill Court very much, so everyone in Firhill was unable to use the washing machine until temperatures would rise again. What if there is snow until halfway through March?!?
Thursday (9th) was our last tutorial, so we could ask the questions we had with regard to the upcoming class exam. I had send him some of the questions I had and I was glad to hear that he thought they were very good questions. One question was so specific that he had had to ask the teacher of that subject who then wished she had PhD students asking such questions, haha. However, they were still trying to figure out the answer to the question themselves and she was therefore unable to answer me. This didn't really matter, because if that's the case then it would at least not appear in the exam. The tutor was very very kind to us (although it was sometimes a bit hard to find out what kind of answer he wanted to a particular question he asked) and he said we can send him questions via the email even if he isn't our tutor anymore. At the end of the tutorial I gave him some typical Dutch snacks: pepernoten, stroopwafels and drop.
Monday 13th we had our class exam. Maybe because it had the 13 in it, but the day started off bad. Most of the snow of the week before had melted away during the weekend, but there was still some ice left on the pavement and the worst part was that the temperature had been below zero during the night, so that what had been melted snow before had turned into ice. You can imagine some parts felt like an ice skating track and for the first time in Scotland and just a few minutes away from the exam building (of course!) I apparently decided to lie down and was suddenly 1.5 meters lower than Mathilde and Leoni. Fortunately, I didn't break anything, but it was a very ugly fall and I had a lot of pain in the parts that I was actually planning to use for sitting on my chair during the exam.
The exam was more difficult than we thought it would be. We were already been given two exam questions in advance of which we had to choose one to answer at the exam. There were six other questions of which we had to answer two. Those three questions had to be answered in essay style and we had about 45 minutes to write each essay (this includes the time you need to think about what you're going to write down). The duration of the exam was three hours, so the 45 minutes that were left were to answer the 'problem/data analysis'. Unfortunately, half of the question was about drawing the structures of amino acids. Although it is supposed to be common knowledge for the Glasgow students, we actually never had to learn the structures in the Netherlands, only their properties and we had never had to 're-learn' them this semester!
For all the courses we have had during this semester, there was only this class exam as a test. I had expected them to ask questions about the major discussed topics in the courses and had focused my learning on those, but instead they were about some minor parts. I have done all I can and now I can only hope that I passed it. They said we might get the grades halfway through January. For Scottish students this class exam only counts for 5% of their total grade of the year and for honour-students (they have a 4th year of Bachelor's) it doesn't even count at all! However, for us it's the only big grade we will get, because we won't be here during the next class exam and the big end-of-the-year exams. They told us that this class exam probably counts for 70% of our total grade and that the grades of the laboratory reports will count for the other 30%.
The exam finished at 12:30 and before we walked out of the lecture theatre (quite relieved it was all over), we were given back our lab reports from the Proteins laboratory classes. I got an A4! (which would be around a 9 in Dutch grading systems) Quite funny: we told Brian Smith (Advisors of Studies and teacher) about the problems we might have getting back to the Netherlands (the weather forecast had been warning us about more snow coming up) and he said that if we got stuck, we should call him and he would make us a Christmas dinner.
To relax a bit and do some last-minute Christmas shopping, we went into town. It was a bit weird to realize that that was probably the last time that I took the bus from the university to the city centre. Because I had already done my Christmas shopping I bought myself a present: a really, really cute book about making cupcakes. It not only explained about how to make the mix, but it also paid special attention to the decorations on top of the cupcakes. They explain it all very clearly and use ingredients you can buy everywhere. I was really looking forward to try some of them out when I would be back to the Netherlands!
After the shopping, we really needed to head back to Firhill Court, because: we needed to pack our bags! Already? Already! Our plane would leave on Sunday (19th, well, at least that is what we were sincerely hoping!), but Mathilde's parents were so kind to drive to Glasgow and bring most of our luggage back to the Netherlands by car! (just like they had done in the end of August!) I was well aware of the fact that I had bought A LOT in these last four months and was wondering how I could create a cleaver way of packing, so I didn't need to sort things out in the Netherlands and that it would be 'easy' to put them in the car. I had bought some extra very strong plastic carrier bags at the Lidl; one of them was filled with clothes, one with presents that had to go to Middelburg, one was filled with presents that had to go to Limburg and one with most of my books (school and reading books). One sports bag with small stuff and two Eastpak bags with the rest of my books and other stuff. Everything that was left would go in my big suitcase (at that moment I still I though I probably didn't need all the space) or my hand luggage on the plane. I had left my postcards and photos on my wall. They're not that heavy, do not take that long to pack and it made my room less empty/more like home for the last few days that I was there.
Love,
Samantha
-----------------------------------
Photos: http://s1046.photobucket.com/home/MathildeCastelijns/allalbums
Cupcakes: http://www.hellocupcakebook.com/
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